Originally built by Gabriel Davioud with gardens by Adolphe
Alphand for the 1878 Paris World’s fair, the old building was demolished and
replaced by the current two wings and central esplanade as the centerpiece of
the 1937 World’s Fair. The object was to give to the city a new ensemble of
monumental museums and cultural institutions. These are currently the musée de
la Marine, de musée de l’Homme, the National theatre of Chaillot and the new Cité
d’Architecture et du patrimoine, formerly musée des Monuments français.

Launched at the time of the 1937 World’s Fair, the construction
was interrupted by the war and was only finished in 1954. The palace using, as
is usual for Perret, concrete in a great variety of textures and colors has a
purified classical style in its use of slender colonnades and projecting
cornices. It resolutely turns its back to the Trocadéro buildings whose
academic style Perret loathed, most particularly after his own plan for the
museums was rejected by the government.